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10 Dec 2016 3:51:14am

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"Why did we not attack Sweden?" retorted bin Laden, rejecting the suggestion this had anything to do with the Western way of life. "We fought with you because ... we want to reclaim our nation. As you spoil our security, we will do so to you."

I think Mr Aly is clutching at straws when he bases his argument that this was a specific defensive attack on an aggressor. It was obvious why Sweden was not attacked - it is a fairly small nation much liked in the Middle East at the time for its soft line on terrorism (by offering safe haven to murderers and those who incited them to murder.)

And of course, it was not Swedish culture that was "corrupting" Osama bin Laden's nation. It was the culture of the West - typified by the USA.

Did Mr Aly ever wonder what "nation" it was to which Mr Bin Laden referred? It would seem very unlikely that it was Saudi Arabia, his birth place. A few thousand troops invited by the rulers (whom bin Laden hated) seems hardly worth mass murder. Somalia (his previous base)?No US troops there - seeing their dead sons dragged around the streets behind pick-up trucks had turned the US off that hell-hole. Afghanistan? Again a lack of occupation.

Was the "nation" the Arab or Muslim world? If that was the case, then it must have been the pervasive influence of the US and the West. I don't see that killing a few thousand people in however spectacular a fashion would slow that down. Even North Korea loves Mickey Mouse, and the Palestinians have used a relation of Mr Mouse to expouse racist and murderous themes to their future warriors.

It seems far more likely that Osama bin Laden struck at the US in order to rally supporters. At the time he mentioned a range of "crimes" against Islam that ranged back to the defeat of the Moors in Spain. He called on all Muslims to support him. He chose as a target a country he could portray as anti-Islamic, though he doubtless knew that more Muslims lived in the USA than in many in the Middle East, and that they enjoyed complete relgious freedom.

In other words he cynically exploited the prejudices of some Moslems to further his own political goals.

One wonders how things would have gone had leading Moslems across the world immediately leapt to deny that this had anything to do with relegion. If from Accra to Zanzibar, from Basrah to the Yemen, counteless mosques had been devoted to teling the faithful that bin Laden was a murderous fanatic.

We will never know. Instead his actions were excused, explained, minimised and ultimately proclaimed to be justified.

Unfortunatley as Mr Aly has semonstrated, the Muslim community has not moved on. Despite a complete lack of evidence, the myth of a US war on Islam is perpetuated. And the reality of a Muslim war on the West is denied.